The Discovery Mining Company was a shareholder-owned gold mining operation located in the New World Mining District near Cooke City, Montana, although there is no evidence that the claims were ever actually worked while the company was in existence. The Discovery Company was a continuation of the Eastern Montana Mining and Smelting Company, an operation established in 1876 and which consolidated many earlier claims in the area, including the Fire Clay, Rising Sun, Uncle Sam, Alta California and Magnetic Iron. The Eastern maintained a mill and smelter at Soda Butte, but it was abandoned sometime around the turn of the century and the structures had been destroyed. In the early twentieth century, the mineral deposits held by the Eastern were still thought possible to be profitably exploited, and the Discovery Company was formed in 1916 to raise capital for that purpose. However, as the decades passed shareholders found their investments were primarily used for paying the taxes and administrative fees for the various claims held by the company and the smelter and mill were never rebuilt. For many years the company's secretary was Bozeman attorney Eugene F. Bunker who handled much of the correspondence preserved in these records. The Discovery Mining Company was officially disbanded in 1996.
From the guide to the Discovery Mining Company Records, 1916-1980, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)
